Eliana Atienza, daughter of TV personality Kim Atienza, was reportedly “kicked out” of her campus and was left “homeless” for participating in an anti-Israel encampment, according to American news outlets.
The 19-year-old student of the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) claimed administrators banned her from campus and kicked her off her student dorm along with six other students on May 9 for “participating in an encampment that had taken up a campus green to protest Israel and its war against Hamas”, NY Post wrote in its article.
Police reportedly began breaking up the encampment the following day.
PEP quoted Eliana’s statements from her YouTube interview with British columnist Owen Jones on May 12, where she discussed the encampment.
Atienza explained that their group focuses on “three demands”, which she stated were, “One, to disclose investments from the University of Pennsylvania. Two, to divest from companies profiting off of Israeli genocide in Gaza. And three, to defend Palestinian scholarship, to defend pro-Palestinian speech on campus.”
“As we’ve seen, the university has met us with violence and aggression,” she added.
“I and five other students have been taken up, been forced to take a mandatory leave of absence. But what that means is, it’s a ban on campus,” PEP quoted her as saying.
“I am 19 years old, I live in a student dorm, and what that ban meant was that I couldn’t access my on-campus housing. I’ve been locked out of my dorm. I’m not allowed to access any dining hall, the library,” she revealed her situation.
Eliana further asserted, “We are not dangerous. We’re all taking a stance against genocide. But the choice to characterize this as a threat makes me wonder, what are we a threat to? What are we threatening to?”
NY Post quoted her statement to US-based radio station, KYW Newsradio, that “UPenn administrators had left her out on the street with nowhere to turn”.
“I don’t have any family to go back home to here,” the outlet quoted her as saying.
According to the NY Post, Atienza participated in “unsuccessful negotiations” with school administrators over the activists’ plea to have the university relieve itself from investments “connected to Israel”.
Eliana is also reportedly a part of a student advocacy group identified as “Fossil Free Penn”, which devotes itself to having the institute “ditch investments in fossil fuel companies”.
She has also co-signed a letter in support of “Palestinians who are fighting to liberate their lands from the Israeli Occupation,” published days after Israel’s October 7 attack against Hamas.
Kuya Kim’s youngest daughter is also facing scrutiny for claiming that the suspension made her homeless despite coming from an affluent family in the Philippines.
Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld, along with other panelists weighed in on the matter while doing a background check on Eliana, in his self-titled satire talk show “Gutfeld!”.
Eliana’s father Kuya Kim, meanwhile, has yet to release a statement.
